Who else here is planning to close all their listings before midnight on the 4th?

[daro2096]

From February 5th it won't be worth it to sell on eBay because of buyer's fees being introduced so on the 4th before midnight I am planning to close all and any items I have up.

Anyone else doing the same?

If eBay want private sellers here they are doing their best to get rid of us.

I will never sell here again(I know I said this before but this time I am out completely).

Well done eBay. RIP eBay, it was good while it lasted.

[jackdaw1985]

i am. not because of the fees, but because of having to send items before you receive the payment. 

[technthread]

---

@millcottage wrote:

Yes eBay seem on the ball with that 👍

Search for 50p and sort in highest price first 😆

---

Yeah I know but technically it is a risk… I can imagine someone selling hand wash or PPE would get flagged quickly if they x20’d their prices 

An expert could fix the coins category for them easily, they only need someone in 1 day per week. Stamps, bullion, coins etc I have always thought it would be a no brainer for eBay to get qualified eyes in to help them out. 

[akemp1]

---

@jackdaw1985 wrote:

i am. not because of the fees, but because of having to send items before you receive the payment. 

---

Other than cashflow I don't really see how it makes any difference to the security of payment as a buyer could always raise an INAD case or bank chargeback weeks later to get the money back under the old system.

[wa44iner]

Yes we have sold 16k items over 4 years but those items have all been vinyl  records. The vast majority of them have been sold for £1. We have a professional cleaning machine that cleans them and it costs 2p to clean each one. Now ebay want to take 74p from each order. Our customers have already said that they will not pay extra and we do not blame them so we are done.  We started all this when we brought 20k records in a barn auction just before the 2020 lockdown it is a part time thing for us but was fun and brought in some extra money.  The thing is we are (or were) big ebay buyers so they are losing our business both ways. We  will just have to either call it a day or go elsewhere.

[wa44iner]

Thank you for the input. We have spoken to a lot of our customers and they say they are not going to pay the extra money. We only started selling due to the 2020 lockdown and it is still a part time thing for us. most of our items sell for  £1 so an extra 74p makes it unviable for our customers. We are honouring all the bids we have and then we will be done. It has been fun (mostly) but we have a gardening business that is totally separate from this so do not have the time to run a full time ebay business.

[moldosgifts]

---

@wa44iner wrote:

Yes we have sold 16k items over 4 years but those items have all been vinyl  records. The vast majority of them have been sold for £1. We have a professional cleaning machine that cleans them and it costs 2p to clean each one. Now ebay want to take 74p from each order. Our customers have already said that they will not pay extra and we do not blame them so we are done.  We started all this when we brought 20k records in a barn auction just before the 2020 lockdown it is a part time thing for us but was fun and brought in some extra money.  The thing is we are (or were) big ebay buyers so they are losing our business both ways. We  will just have to either call it a day or go elsewhere.

---

The highlighted text unfortunately that is a business activity very much how i started on ebay auction purchase and putting it all back in to buy another lot.

On the plus side if you change now you will not be affected by the changes and can carry on trading .

And can offset all your expenses on your tax WIN WIN

[jow1995]

So you are running a business on a private account. I think you may have more problems when Ebay pass your selling details to HMRC. Your totally sales over the 4years may surprise you as the postage is included, possibly over 50k. Good luck. Maybe worth selling the rest at a local auction house/Car boot fare.

[wa44iner]

We brought the records for ourselves we had no intention of selling on ebay. We are big record collectors it has been a hobby for over 30yrs now. We heard about the sale and went to add to our own collection. When we get records that we already own we used to sell them in bulk at our local auction house. The 2020 lockdown changed all that. We had been regular buyers on ebay and suddenly we had thousands of spare records that we could not get rid of. ebay was an easy way of selling them. It has been an enjoyable process cleaning and selling music to other lovers of vinyl, but we are both now in our 60s and we have no desire to start up another business. 

[sky-news-aware]

What is with all the pitch forking?

YOU don't know his circumstances

Unless you are certain of his circumstances with HMRC but you are not!

Do you work for HMRC?

So I would back off or else it could backfire on you! 

[moldosgifts]

I started at auction 2005 bought some stock sold it all bought another sold that all reinvested with the intention of building a small business, my point was mainly as a business i am not affected by those changes so no buyer fee for me.

Maybe worth having a business account so you can carry on relatively unchanged.

[akemp1]

---

@wa44iner wrote:

Yes we have sold 16k items over 4 years but those items have all been vinyl  records. The vast majority of them have been sold for £1. We have a professional cleaning machine that cleans them and it costs 2p to clean each one. Now ebay want to take 74p from each order. Our customers have already said that they will not pay extra and we do not blame them so we are done.  We started all this when we brought 20k records in a barn auction just before the 2020 lockdown it is a part time thing for us but was fun and brought in some extra money.  

---

I genuinely don't understand why it's been worth you selling so many for just £1+£1.55 per order. Surely the postage is costing you that and with the old ebay private seller fee structure (even on % promotion weekends there was a fixed element) and the cost of packaging, electricity, wear on equipment, taking to the post office and occasional write-offs when you have to refund someone etc surely they would be better sold as a joblot to someone? Even if this is business then I'm unsure HMRC would be interested in at least these transactions if it's been unprofitable.

[the_bald_orc]

HMRC doesn't care about profit, it cares about turnover.

If at the end of the tax year you've made a loss it means you'll have no tax to pay once your self assessment is submitted..  And as far as I know any losses from a previous trading year can be offset against any tax owed for the next.

[papso22]

---

@the_bald_orc wrote:

HMRC doesn't care about profit, it cares about turnover.

If at the end of the tax year you've made a loss it means you'll have no tax to pay once your self assessment is submitted..  And as far as I know any losses from a previous trading year can be offset against any tax owed for the next.

---

I thought profit was what they cared about?

[eastern-lights]

---

@papso22 wrote:

---

@the_bald_orc wrote:

HMRC doesn't care about profit, it cares about turnover.

If at the end of the tax year you've made a loss it means you'll have no tax to pay once your self assessment is submitted..  And as far as I know any losses from a previous trading year can be offset against any tax owed for the next.

---

I thought profit was what they cared about?

---

I think, they tax you on profit but decide based on turnover whether or not you need to submit a tax return?

[the-layer-laboratory]

It won't affect genuine private sellers, but I can assure you that the VAT man is most definitely interested in turnover. Once you're over the VAT threshold, he'll want one sixth of it!

EDIT: This is somewhat of a tongue-in-cheek comment and not a true reflection of a typical VAT bill that would also offset any input VAT you have paid during the specific accounting period.

[kath3735_wxmjn]

what a rude and aggressive response!  Nothing in jow1995 comment deserved that and he was being factual. Actually it sounds quite threatening and i would think the moderators might not be too happy with it. 

[game_raid]

Exactly right, why would they be concerned about a sellers turnover? Tax is on profits not turnover, all they are interested in is how the figures are achieved when the return was submitted.

I can't see many small sole traders working from home having huge carry back losses, this is a whole different ball game and an accountants advice is best required.

The only time the HMRC are concerned about turnover is when the VAT threshold has been breached, I know this first hand from having a VAT inspection.

I was told It is one of the most common reasons they do VAT inspections, sellers not keeping an eye on their turnover and registering late. Then it's up to the compliance officer to decide if it was a genuine error or done purposely.

[papso22]

I think at least one poster is getting confused with the different taxes managed by HMRC.

Direct taxes such as income tax, are profit based, indirect taxes such as VAT, are turnover based.

[akemp1]

---

@papso22 wrote:

Direct taxes such as income tax, are profit based, indirect taxes such as VAT, are turnover based.

---

So if all those hundreds of £1 record sales from a joblot were unprofitable or break-even after considering all incurred costs is there any need to declare them to HMRC? Could any losses on selling them be offset against any profit on selling the slightly higher value ones? If the joblot was not bought with the intention to resell for profit (maybe picking some out to keep for their own enjoyment and this is just a labour intensive strategy to rehome the rest) would this be a CGT or income tax issue? Doesn't look like enough sales value for VAT registration.

[game_raid]

The HMRC don't care about individual sales of an item on self assessment unless it falls under CGT , they are interested in money in, money out and what's left in the middle.

As an example :

Paid 10,000 for the collection sold them for 20,000, minus fees postage and whatever other costs they are left with 5,000 that is the figure the HMRC really wish to know about. Turnover has to be declared but it's nothing to do with income tax. 

I don't know the sellers situation but if they are self employed no tax would be paid as they are below the tax free allowance of £12570 but the HMRC still need a self assessment submitted.

The figures are not exact just used as an example.

The HMRC will decide if the seller is a business or not, the seller will have to try and convince them that they were part of collection they have decided to sell.

CGT only applies to a single item, such as classic car that has been bought, refurbished and then sold on for a profit or a gold bar which is another example.

Anyone worried about tax should speak to an accountant, most will give a free consultation to advise what your liabilities are if any at all.